The
crowning irony was plaited of thorns -- thorns which were the
symbol of a cursed earth, symbol
of a creation gone astray. In assuming responsibility for sin
in all its forms and consequences the Lord was
held accountable for this part of the total cost as well. That
He should have been crowned at all reflects in a remarkable way
that He was a King indeed; but that the crown was a crown of
thorns spoke eloquently of the
total cost of establishing the kingdom over which He came to
rule. He bore the earth's curse, too.

Introduction

IT MIGHT SEEM
rather absurd to publish a Paper on the manner of Jesus' death,
since Scripture is so very explicit: He was crucified. To this
agree all the creeds, and it is doubtful if anyone today would
challenge them.
People who undertake scientific
research are in the habit of saying that it pays to be particularly
cautious about accepting what is obviously true. What
is obviously true not infrequently turns out to be actually false.
The trouble is that there is little or no incentive to challenge
it. The consequence is that a more important truth is often neglected
or left undiscovered. For centuries it was obvious that
the earth was stationary and the sun moved around it, and until
somebody seriously challenged this view our understanding of
the workings of the starry heavens was very largely at fault.
When we discover that that which has always been assumed to be
true is in fact not so at all, we are often led to the recognition
of some much more profound truth. This, I believe, applies to
the how of the Lord's death. What I wish to discuss in
this Paper has been recognized from the earliest times, yet it
is continually being lost sight of because it is difficult to
state it precisely in such a way as to distinguish the Lord s
death from all other deaths of which we have any record. The
important point throughout this discussion is to keep clearly
in view that we are not examining why the Lord died, but
how.
In recent years the form of death
which Jesus embraced has been re-discussed by two quite opposed
groups of people. On the one hand there are those who, because
of their skepticism and with little respect for the Word of God,
have questioned whether Jesus died on the Cross at all. Their
arguments are worth considering briefly, as we shall do, because
their refutation brings out several aspects of the

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Gospel records and of
the subsequent behaviour of the disciples which are worth reminding
ourselves about since they tremendously confirm one's faith in
Scripture. On the other hand, there are those who, because of
their very confidence in the Word of God, have pored over the
records and discovered there a number of apparently casual observations
made by the writers that are highly significant from a medical
point of view and that seem to show that although Jesus died
on the Cross, He did not die because of it.
This second view reflects the opinion
of a number of the early Church Fathers who reached the same
conclusion, but by a somewhat different route. They were guided
by certain intimations in Scripture that they had deeply reflected
upon and which are essentially theological in nature. The more
recent writers have approached the same subject in the same spirit
of reverence, but rather more from a physiological point of view.
Both lines of evidence are complementary.
The first view, sponsored by certain
liberal theologians, is simply that we do not know how Jesus
died, only that although He was crucified, He was mistakenly
removed from the Cross before He was actually dead. They argue
that the extraordinary strains and agonies of mind through which
Jesus had passed brought Him after several hours on the Cross
to a state of such total collapse that He was to all appearances
actually dead long before the other two men who were crucified
with Him. According to tradition, they say, He received a superficial
wound from a soldier's spear which in His then state of shock
led to comparatively slight loss of blood. He was taken down
and carried away by His disciples to be laid in a tomb without
the usual preparation for burial being performed, which would
have left Him bound and helpless, because it was not legal to
carry out this task, it being a holy day.
But there in the cool environment
He revived and subsequently searched out His friends, who thus
spread the story about His resurrection from the dead. Thus was
an ignominious defeat turned opportunely into an apparent victory.
The whole business was the result of a series of genuine mistakes,
perhaps nobody really intending to deceive anyone, but all alike
being misled as a result of the first false assumption that He
really had died on the Cross. After a number of weeks He seems
to have disappeared, and His disappearance was explained away
by His closest disciples by saying that He had been taken up
into heaven. In point of fact, the whole ordeal may ultimately
have so reduced His strength that He died shortly afterwards.
When and where He died, no one knows. The result is that

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the supernatural element
is entirely removed and there really never was any resurrection
from the dead, because Jesus did not actually die at the time
of the crucifixion. This, to my mind, is a completely erroneous
interpretation of events.
The second view is one which has
appealed to a number of devout Christian medical men who have
had occasion to observe personally or to study in medical literature
the phenomenon of death by rupture of the heart. They believe,
to use a more popular terminology, that heartbreak can be a cause
of death, and that it was in fact the cause of the death of Jesus
Christ on the Cross.
I think the evidence of a heart
rupture in this instance is very strong indeed. But I think it
is important to bear in mind that this evidence can be interpreted
in two ways and that the difference between these two ways of
interpreting the evidence is very important. Assuming for the
moment that the Lord's heart was in fact broken, one may still
ask whether it was actually the cause of death. Just as
we have to recognize that He may have died on the Cross, but
not because of it; so we must also recognize that He may have
died with a broken heart, but not because His heart
was broken.
When we speak here of a "broken
heart," it is necessary to bear in mind that the term is
not being used in any poetic or psychological sense. The term
is being used in a strictly medical or physiological sense, meaning
precisely what it implies, namely, the actual rupture of the
organ itself. It might be thought that such an event would lead
to instant death. This, as we shall see, is not always the case.
If we had been thinking in poetic
or psychological terms, we should really find ourselves very
quickly involved in the question rather of why Jesus died.
But this issue is so all-embracing that it would be presumption
to suppose one could adequately deal with the subject in a short
Paper such as this. My object is to deal with the lesser issue
of how Jesus died. Although it is a lesser issue, it is
nevertheless one of great significance and worthy of the most
serious reflection by every thoughtful Christian. It is worthy
of serious reflection because God has seen fit to include in
the Gospel records several highly significant statements which
are so exceptional that they cannot possibly have been introduced
incidentally. I do not believe that any part of the Word of God
is "merely incidental."
These almost-hidden clues in the
New Testament are the justification for the view taken in this
Paper.